Black Clover TV Anime Listed With 51 Episodes

Well, someone seems awfully confident in this. Black Clover is a Shounen anime featuring the tale of Asta – a boy without magic in a world where magic is everything. He dreams of one day becoming “The Wizard King.” That way he can prove that it doesn’t matter where you came from. You can be special. And if that didn’t sound remarkably familiar, then you don’t watch a ton of anime. Or at least not a lot of Shounen.

Black Clover premiered back in early October. Not long ago the show’s official website revealed the release of 5 box sets. Now more details on those box sets are confirmed. This comes with information on how many episodes the series will presumably have – a whopping 51. That’s right. 51 episodes of-

…Joy. And just a head’s up: that’s only the first episode. The box sets will release throughout 2018, beginning in February. The final one will hit shelves in January of 2019. Each set has a total of 9 – 12 episodes. There are also going to be 4 new openings and endings. The first 2018 issue of Weekly Shounen Jump will reveal the extras on December 4. Hopefully, a pair of earplugs is among them.

If Crunchyroll is to be believed, Black Clover apparently the next “King of Shounen.” And of course, the laughs of many a Shounen fan were heard around the world. Especially with the advent of evident and consistent fan favorite, My Hero Academia (Boku no Hero Academia). The series was met with heavy criticism, and received a billing as a “poor man’s Naruto.” No doubt mostly due to the uncanny similarities the two series share in their early stages. And mind you, the genre as a whole tends to follow a pretty closed set of guidelines. So this is saying something. Many argue that even the manga suffers from this problem and does pick up, later on. Still, 51 episodes is a fairly long stretch and there’s no telling when, in that time, the anime will begin to follow its original’s example.

In all reality, if one can get through Asta’s screaming, it’s difficult to call Black Clover“bad.” If anything the best word for it in its current form is “standard.” It’s an incredibly sufficient Shounen anime, and little else. It hits all the usual beats and doesn’t really try especially hard to differentiate itself. Nor does it really try to take the typical tropes and conventions it uses in any interesting new directions. There is potential in it, and the series has plenty of time to realize it. It’s only up to episode 6, at the moment.

Currently, it’s fine. There are worse things than a generic Shounen anime. Hopefully, the series uses its 51 episodes wisely, and delivers something different from its Shounen predecessors to help it stand out and really become something special.

Chris has a fondness for geek media of all kinds – video games, anime, comic books, you name it. And he strives to bring people the same types of experiences that he grew up with, while also sharing his admiration for what’s already there through articles and fun geek news commentary shows! Whenever he’s not writing for The Nerd Stash, he’s keeping up his own website, Galvanic Media, along with some friends.